Research Infrastructures in the Digital Humanities

Abstract

This peer reviewed document reflects on the centrality of Research Infrastructures (RIs) to the Humanities. It argues that without RIs such as archives, libraries, academies, museums and galleries (and the sources that they identify, order, preserve and make accessible) significant strands of Humanities research would not be possible. After proposing a wide-ranging definition of digital RIs with the aim of reflecting on the meaning of infrastructure in the Humanities rather than on those parts common to other domains of science it attempts to relate physical RIs to digital ones. By drawing on a number of case studies chosen to showcase the variety of research around existing or emerging infrastructures it demonstrates that digital RIs offer Humanities scholars new and productive ways to explore old questions and develop new ones. Indeed, it is argued that making our cultural heritage accessible in digital form plus its sensitive interlinking with other resources opens a new frontier for Humanities research for addressing grand challenges in the Humanities themselves and at the interface with other research domains. These include not only research-based challenges, such as data-driven Humanities, but also institutional and social issues, such as strengthening higher education programmes as well as the recognition of the inherently process character of digital research and the implications of this for evaluation and promotion.